Did I ever tell you about the time I married a completely incompatible man less than a hundred days after meeting him?
We’ll call him George, because that was his name.
We met online, back when meeting online was practically unheard of. Our courtship was brief but intense and involved lots of fancy restaurants and good wine. Within 10 weeks we’d secretly bought a house together at the top of a hill near Wakefield; two weeks later we eloped.
We were married in a highrise on Ambleside Drive by a Liberal Catholic priest. Two building janitors served as witnesses. They didn’t stay to actually witness the service, they just signed the paper, collected their $5 each, wished us well and left.
My child (age 13) and George’s children (ages 5 and 7) watched solemnly from the couch. The priest conducted the ceremony in front of a blaring TV; there was a chest-beating gorilla on TV. I got a terrible case of panicky giggles halfway through my very brief wedding, and we had to interrupt the service for a few minutes so I could compose myself.
Immediately following the service we drove to Lake Placid where George was playing in a hockey tournament. (I lost his seven-year-old son in an arena there, but found him again before anybody else found out. It was terrifying.)
Anyway. A week later we moved into our house in Wakefield and discovered we were completely incompatible.
Here are some examples:
He was a clean freak. I wasn’t.
He was a control freak. I wasn’t.
He was a productivity freak. I wasn’t.
He was a status symbol freak. I wasn’t.
I’d never even heard of anybody hating books before I married George. For some reason he never mentioned it during our courtship. In our shared house, my books were relegated to the basement, because he said they made the living room look like a student’s dorm. Okay, whatever. But he went even further than that. It was okay to read for information, but one should never read for pleasure. Because, reading robs us of valuable time and we should all be accomplishing as much as humanly possible every single day. He didn’t even like his children reading, or me reading to them. (He wanted them to be able to read, but not to enjoy it or spend any time on it.)
The clean freak stuff was tied into the control freak stuff, because nobody could do anything to his standards except him. If I wiped down the counter, he’d re-wipe it immediately. So we hired a cleaning woman to come in once a week but he didn’t think she was good enough either. (She was so interesting though – her new husband had talked her into moving from Toronto to the country, and then into adopting two Romanian orphans, and then, three months later, he dumped her, leaving her to raise them alone!)
George’s control issues extended their creepy tentacles into everything. We had weekly meetings. With agendas. And spreadsheets.
We hadn’t even been married a month when I realized that the only way this marriage could work was if I were to change.
Now, the thing was, I knew I wasn’t perfect and there was room for improvement, and I didn’t want to give up on my marriage without even trying to make it work, so I tried to change.
Two years later I decided he wasn’t worth changing for, and besides, it wasn’t even really about changing me, it was about controlling me. So I took my son and my dog and my cat and moved back to Ottawa, where we lived happily ever after.
Part II to follow, in which I answer the inevitable question: Why did I marry the incompatible stranger?
If you ever need a witness to stay for the whole ceremony . . . well, you know where I live.
wow talk about living in the moment. :)I’m looking forward to hearing the rest of your story.
zoom, you are amazing. Seriously. I’ve been reading your blog for a few years now, and you never fail to surprise me. I hope you write a book someday… or have you already done that too?
Remember the tea bag that had to be dipped precisely 7 times in the cup? And my suggestion that you just not tell him that it actually got dipped 9 times? And all our giggles?
And what happened to the house?
Will you write about … how to put this in terms that won’t give the story away … the blues fest duel?
Funny Wesley always really liked George!
This is the outline of a book, right? I’d love to review the first two chapters.
He hated books!?? Blasphemy! LOL. Definitely not worth changing yourself for. What a weirdo.
And he was afraid that Margaret Atwood (the poster of Bluebeard’s Egg ) might offend his friends …
I still remember showing up for Thanksgiving weekend with my three kids who were reeling from their parents’ breakup…you were in “Martha Stewart” mode complete with the denim jumper. You had to “borrow” the money for a turkey from your own husband to pay for a turkey for dinner.
And, let’s not bring up his “Sam” issues.
He… didn’t… like… books???? Really? That’s so…. foreign. My current roommate doesn’t like to read books, and I’m cool with that, but she doesn’t hate them… Wow. He’s definitely weird. I’d never give up book and reading for anyone.
We live in a virtual library, and one thing we’ve noticed is that usually people who would never even read a book still love how they look when covering walls, and want to have them covering their walls!
Thank Goodness you have found someone so compatable this time…he was worth the wait.
Sounds like you are very kind to use the word “incompatible”.
Lets not bring up his James issues either!
Sounds like obsessive compulsive disorder.
Remember how he was so over protective of HIS kids? They are likely ruined now … and they had so much potential.
Grace – ha ha, yes, I wish I’d known you then!
J – I’ll try to get to it today.
Em, writing a book is still on the to-do list…
Oma, oh yeah, I’d forgotten about the tea bag!
Tom, the house – a gorgeous post-and-beam – still stands on the top of that hill near Wakefield. He moved out a year or so after I did. He returned my share of the down payment. Strangers moved into the house and put up those ugly icicle Christmas lights and left them there year-round.
Mudmama, I think I’ll keep on repressing the memory of the Bluesfest dual. 😉 (I had no idea Wesley liked him, btw.)
Ian, ha! if I ever decide to turn it into a book, I’ll keep you in mind.
Hannah, I know – I can understand people not liking reading, but hating books seems so unreasonable.
Oma – OMG, I’d forgotten about the Atwood print too!
Deb, the turkey really wasn’t that big a deal. We split all expenses down the middle. I just ran out of cash that weekend was all. But the Sam issues were major. He really didn’t like my dog and cat.
Convivia, I didn’t give up book reading for him. I just read in places where he wouldn’t have to see me.
Arden, yeah, everybody likes the LOOK of books. Except George.
Deb.
Aggie, I often wonder what word HE uses.
Mudmama, yes.
Julia, there might have been a touch of OCD in there.
Oma, I have some contact with his kids. They’re 18 and 20 now!
Zoom, this is hilarious as long as you are not the one that was directly involved. I would bet more of us have made the same mistake but no longer talk about it so by now it didn’t happen, Pretty cool that your mom stays in touch with his kids. They probably didn’t have a chance for a normal life. A fun game would be to see how many of your readers can figure out why you married him.
Lissa, you’re right, that WOULD be a fun game. Disturbing, perhaps, but fun! Also, just to set the record straight – it’s me that stays in touch with his kids a little bit, not my mom.
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